


the Despair that precedes Hope

by Starling (StarDandere)



Series: V3 Ficlets [2]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe, Amputation, Character Death, Ficlet Collection, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, warnings change by chapter & will be in the notes at beginning of chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 02:23:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15426963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarDandere/pseuds/Starling
Summary: Filling out my badthingshappen bingo card, one whump fic at a time.





	1. Mistake - Tragedy AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: Amputation
> 
> Warning(s): Amputation

Saihara Shuichi was afraid.

 

What of, exactly? Well, he was afraid of many things. Failure. Death. Bears. The entire world. But none of those fears compared to the one building in his chest at this very moment. The moment when he realized he fucked up.

Shuichi was a detective. Was being the key word, since, well, since the world had ended and all that. Of course, that implied that he had been one before the Tragedy, which wasn’t true in the slightest. At best, he was an apprentice. At worst, he was just some kid playing hide and seek with the neighbor’s cats. None of which did wonders for his self esteem. Not that self esteem was important when the number one priority in his life was staying alive.

 

Which he was exceptionally bad at doing.

 

This had been a long time coming. From the second he fell into the hands of the biggest sub-organization of the Ultimate Despair, the clock on his life had been ticking down faster and faster. It tumbled down faster than his mind on any given day, which would honestly be impressive if it wasn’t his life he was talking about.

He had the  _stupid_  idea one day that he was going to figure out who was stealing rations from the storeroom. It was far from hard to set up a stakeout and discover that it was the third-in-command, Oishi. It didn’t take him long to decide to report him. Because honestly, from how the two above him talked down to him, Shuichi thought they didn’t like him, and that it would be safe to inform them.

 

Of course, he was horribly wrong. He should’ve seen this coming, but he was naive.

 

“Stop squirming so much,” the second-in-command, Fujiwara, growled, tightening the straps they were using to keep Shuichi pinned to a chair. The leather dug into his skin painfully, causing more tears to well up in his eyes. His heart pounded in his chest as swirling red eyes surrounded him, other lower ranked members called in to watch an example be made out of him for his “disloyalty” or something. He wanted them to stop looking, stop staring, leave him alone-!

The only noise in the room, the methodical sharpening of a knife, didn’t help to distract him from the endless eyes watching his every movement, enjoying his growing terror. Even when the noise stopped, it only added to his fear as the first-in-command - a stern woman named Saeki - brought the knife over, placing it into Fujiwara’s hands.

“Don’t do anything unnecessary. Just what we discussed,” she ordered, before stepping away to lean against the far wall. Fujiwara huffed, checking the knife quickly before approaching Shuichi.

“Are you right handed or left?” He barked, causing Shuichi to flinch, curling his fingers inward. When he didn’t immediately respond, he scowled, kicking him roughly in the shin.

“Right, I’m, I’m right handed,” he gasped out through the pain, tingling running up and down his leg.

 

“Palms flat on the armrest,” Fujiwara ordered next, “Else you’ll be in for more suffering than’s already coming.” Shuichi shakingly complied, stiff fingers uncurling as sweat dripped down his face. Once his right hand was flat, Fujiwara jerked his head, and one of the red-eyed watchers scurried closer, grabbing Shuichi’s wrist with one hand and pushing down on the back of his hand with the other to keep it flat. An excited energy dripped off them like oil. Shuichi wanted to throw up.

“This is what happens to  _liars,_  you understand?” He mocked, lurching forward with the knife to align it at the joint connecting his pinky to his knuckle. Shuichi shivered, silently begging any higher power listening to stop this-

 

With a heavy shove to the knife’s blade, excruciating pain shot through his arm. A scream tore out of his throat, and he had to force his eyes shut to stop himself from looking at the damage that he could  **feel**  pulsing through his entire body. The pain was almost drowned out by the sadistic giggling that followed his scream. Almost, but not quite.

Fujiwara allowed him all of thirty seconds to scream and cry in pain before he shouted, “Fuck, shut up already! It was just one fucking finger.” As Shuichi clenched his throat shut and opened his eyes, he plucked said finger off the armrest and held it up for him to see. Blood and gore and bone filled his watery vision. “See? Just one tiny finger. Probably won’t miss this one.” He chucked it to the side.

 

“Someone pick that up. And get a bandage; I don’t want blood all over the floor,” Saeki cut in, heeled boots clicking against the floor as she crossed back over, examining the results before continuing speaking, “So, food’s been going missing from the storeroom. Do you know who did it?”

He wanted to resume screaming. Instead, he shakily mumbled, “No, ma'am.” He looked to his left hand, the only safe spot in the room.

“Oh really?” He could almost hear the quirked brow in her voice. In the corner of his eye, he saw her turn to face the crowd, loudly asking, “Does anyone agree that it was Oishi? Or perhaps someone’s seen other suspicious activity around the storeroom recently?”

Shuichi swallowed as the crowd mumbled among themselves. “Saihara, it had to’ve been Saihara,” they decided, swirling eyes hungry for more blood.  _His_  blood.

She turned back to him. “There’s evidence of you being off post in the time frame that this food went missing in. Do you have any objections to that?”

He shivered, both from her intense stare and the drying blood coating his right hand. “My uncle was a detective. I was only staking out the room to find the real culprit,” he answered honestly. She and Fujiwara shook their heads. Not that they believed him the first time.

 

“If you were any older or any less useful, it’d be more than just two fingers for thievery.” With that final statement, she returned to her original position, swapping places with Fujiwara again.

He realigned the blade, this time to his ring finger. “Don’t make us kill you,” he growled, “Because we can and will.”

 

His final scream was allowed to last until his voice gave out.


	2. Blackout - VLR AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: Clawing at Own Throat
> 
> Warning(s): self harm, suicidal thoughts/actions, death/suicide, minor spoilers for Virtue's Last Reward

“God fucking dammit,” Kaito hissed as he pounded on the elevator button, demanding it to return to floor A faster. Ouma had disappeared so fast, giving no explanation as to why, and he just- he just knew he needed to follow after him.

When the elevator returned, he stumbled into it, fighting at a spinning headache pounding in his skull. Thankfully, his rapidly warping vision wasn’t enough to render him unable to hit the button for floor B, and what felt like seconds later the doors opened again. Did they close to begin with? He wasn’t sure, but he didn’t have time to question it.

 

He only made it a few steps towards the second set of chromatic doors when the lights went out. The darkness settled so fast that he almost wondered if he’d been gassed again, but a sharp pinch to the palm of his hand confirmed he was still awake.

“What the fuck..?” He cursed, reaching for the wall for both guidance and stabilization. He waited a minute or two to see if the lights would come back on.

 

They didn’t.

 

He swallowed, taking a deep breath to calm himself. He wasn’t a coward; a simple blackout wouldn’t stop him. Even if it’d be significantly harder to find Ouma now, he had no plans involving giving up.

Right?

As his trailing fingers brushed against one of the doors - the red door? or the green? - he suddenly grew fearful. The doors were powered by electricity. There was no power. He was trapped. Trapped inside a place he was already trapped in.

The black world spun in time with the nameless thoughts accumulating in his head. He felt himself slip off the wall, crumpling to his knees. No pain came with the impact, or maybe it did and he just didn’t notice from the increasingly loud buzzing in his ears. Another irritatingly loud noise quickly joined it. It took him too long to realize it was his own voice, screaming.

 

Stop doing that.

 

He covered his ears, willing the buzzing and the screaming to go away. It continued to bounce around in his skull regardless - in fact, it seemed to increase in volume.

 

_Stop doing that!_

 

His hands slipped from his ears to his throat, blunt nails digging into the skin there in hopes of- of stopping his screaming? In hopes of stopping everything? Stopping? Stopping life? Stopping living?

Yes.

He- He had to stop living.

Death was the only escape from this never-ending  **hell.**

 

…

 

He couldn’t feel anything.

His nails, though they scratched well enough, weren’t sharp enough.

He needed a  **knife.**

Where?

 _Infirmary._  He had to get to the infirmary.

 

He jerked to his feet and ran blindly in the direction of the elevator. He bumped along the wall until a hand brushed against the panel. He pressed it. Nothing. Again.  _Nothing._

The buzzing was back. There was some other noise nearby too, but he couldn’t focus on it. He was trapped. Trapped.  _Trapped._   ** _Trapped._**

 

“Dontyoudare.”

His hands were suddenly yanked away from his throat.

“Stupidmomotachanimnotlettingyoudothistomeagain.” The growling irritation in Ouma’s voice was the only thing he could distinguish. Confused, Kaito struggled; why was Ouma stopping him? Didn’t he know they needed to die-

His hands were shoved behind his back, and something cold and metal clicked around his wrists. He moved to push Ouma away harder, but he couldn’t bring his hands forward. What was this?! Handcuffs?!

“Let me go!” His voice shouted. “I- I need to die! We all need to die! It’s the only way!”

 

Ouma didn’t answer or release him. Instead, he grabbed Kaito’s arm and hauled him alarmingly fast in some direction. Every time he attempted to jerk himself away, Ouma sharply tugged him back, throwing his body and mind off balance.

“Where are we going? I need to go to the infirmary,” he choked out.

“No,” Ouma curtly responded, so short he barely caught it. No? No what?

 

An uncertain amount of time passed.

 

Finally, the lights came back on. When they did, the two of them were standing in a new room. The door behind them began to slide closed, before the sensor caught on a box in the doorway. It went up and down too frequently for his liking; he looked away, taking in the rest of the room.

“Where are we?” Kaito finally asked, dazed and overwhelmed by the many objects surrounding them.

Ouma’s head jerked to look at him. “You don’t recognize it?” His intonation was strange, words almost too separated.

“Should I?”

 

He didn’t answer, quickly turning away to look at the room’s safe. While he fiddled with it, Kaito pulled at the handcuffs.

“Sit,” Ouma ordered, rushing across the room to look at something else.

“Why do I have to listen to you?” He snapped back, tugging harder and looking around for something to-

 

A scalpel.

**He needed that.**

 

He just barely reached the counter it laid on when a hand swiped it from right under his nose. He spun around, head reeling at the movement.

“Ouma! Give me that!” He pleaded, “I need to escape this stupid game!” Kaito attempted to ram into him, but he was too fast. He said something that he didn’t quite catch, running to the other side of the room. Kaito ran after him, not knowing what else to do. He needed that scalpel. He needed it.  _He needed it._

The thought played over and over in Kaito’s mind, until Ouma finally stopped. His eyes glanced to his hands- Where was it?

“Where’s the scalpel?!”

“I’ll trade you it for the safe combination,” he slowly replied.

 

The safe combination? He didn’t know that! But he could get the scalpel and finally be free- “Two stars on the top left and right, moon on the bottom right,” he randomly blurted out, hoping Ouma would accept his B.S. answer and just let him die already..!

Ouma darted back to the safe without giving him his half of the deal. Kaito looked around wildly, trying to spot something,  _anything_  he could use.

He found nothing. Maybe he could bash his head into the glass tanks along the wall? A choked sob escaped his throat as Ouma came back to his side, an injection gun in his hands. “Please, kill me. I can’t do this any more.”

“Be quiet,” Ouma responded, tugging Kaito’s sleeve up to his elbow. Before he could pull away, the injection gun was pressed against the inside of his arm, the soft hiss of the trigger being pulled filling the quiet room. Something entered his bloodstream; he hoped it was poison.

 

“What was that?” He asked regardless. Ouma chucked the gun onto the lab table, once again ignoring him to return to the safe. He hesitated, then approached the table to try to read the label on the bottle. Axelavir? The word sounded familiar, but he couldn’t remember where he’d heard it. He looked back to Ouma, who was flipping through a journal with a serious expression. “Is Axelavir poison?”

“No,” he responded immediately. Kaito didn’t feel disappointed by that. Nor did he feel the irresistible urge to go anywhere or do anything, so he approached Ouma, looking over his shoulder.

“That’s Russian,” he commented after realizing what the journal was written in, “Do you know that too?”

Ouma paused, turning around. “I don’t. You can read this?”

“Yeah. You want me to?”

 

“Later,” he responded, tucking the journal away into his pocket. He then clicked the buttons on his bracelet, checking the time. “40 minutes until the next set of doors open. Let’s go there for now.”

Kaito frowned in confusion. “What about the others? I wanna go check on them; the blackout must’ve worried them too.” He paused. “What do you think caused that anyway?”

“Donno.” He paused. “Alright, let’s go get them too then.” He started for the door, then stopped when Kaito didn’t follow after.

 

“Are you going to remove these handcuffs? My arms are starting to hurt.”

He tapped a finger again his face thoughtfully. “Hmm, should I?” With a flick of his wrist, he was holding the scalpel. “I might need to cut your wrist off to do that.”

Kaito backed away. “H-Hey, c'mon, don’t tell me you lost the key.”

He grinned at his answer, tossing the scalpel across the room into the sink. “Don’t freak out; it was just a joke. Of course I have it.” His hand went into his pocket, pulling out a small key. “Maybe I should make you get on your hands and knees and beg for it though…”

“Now’s not the time to joke about stuff like that!” He shouted. “Just unlock ‘em!”

Ouma sighed loudly. “Alright, alright, don’t throw a fit.” He walked around Kaito and with two quick clicks the handcuffs fell back into his possession.

 

Kaito took a moment to rub his sore wrists with a frown. “Geez, why’d you even do that in the first place?” When Ouma only responded by walking out through the ajar door, he hurried afterwards, continuing his interrogation as they walked. “And why did you even drag me along- no, how did you even get into that room?”

“What were you doing?” Ouma diverted, “During the blackout, and right after it ended.”

“What? What do you mean, I was-” … What  _did_  he do? It just happened, but he could already feel a layer of fog over the memory. It unnerved him. Unwittingly, the question slipped from his mouth. “What did I do?”

Ouma didn’t answer for a long moment, only answering as they stepped into the elevator to return to the upper floor. “You tried to kill yourself. You were infected with Radical-6.”

“What?! No I didn’t!” He had to be lying. “And why would I have  _that?”_

He shrugged. “I don’t know any more than that.” With that, he became unresponsive to Kaito’s growing list of questions, and he was forced to give up for now.

 

Not only because he refused, however. Another problem, a far more horrifying one, soon reared its head.

 

They entered the infirmary, an unfamiliar but disgusting smell hitting his nose immediately. Next to him, Ouma pulled back, as if trying to escape whatever laid within the room.

Kaito wasn’t so lucky, eyes quickly locating the source.

 

Blood and gore streaked the floor, pooling around the bodies they belonged to. The bodies, the  _corpses_  of his fellow participants. All seven of them, all seven of his new friends laid in their own blood, fatal wounds ranging from slit throats to chest wounds to numerous slashes across their wrists.

It didn’t take him long to find the murder weapon, clenched loosely in Saihara’s hand. Another scalpel, dirty and drying from its excessive use. He clearly died by the latter of the three methods, and the words “infected with Radical-6” echoed in his mind.

 

“Why..?” He questioned, the word escaping as a sob. He backed away from the scene, back quickly hitting the medicine cabinet, where his feet brushed again bottles on the floor. He looked down and picked one up; Soporil.

“We should leave. There’s… There’s nothing we can do.” Ouma’s strained voice barely reached him. When he didn’t respond, blankly staring at the vial in his hands, Ouma pulled into the room, wrapping a hand around his wrist and pulling. “C'mon.”

“Why?” He repeated. Why did this happen? Why did they die? Why did they have to leave them all alone?

Ouma took his question at face value. “They were all infected. There was nothing we could do.” His grip around Kaito’s wrist tightened. “We need to  _go.”_  His voice was almost desperate and, too tired to argue back, Kaito let him pull him behind the divider, away from the gory sight.

 

He didn’t think he would ever get that sight, that  _smell,_  out of his mind, even as disinfectant hit his nose. Ouma was pouring rubbing alcohol on a rag.

Seconds later, he hissed as said rag was pushed again his neck, burning at the contact. He pushed him away, covering his neck defensively. “What the hell?!”

He frowned at him. “I need to clean that.”

“Clean what?!” He jerked to his feet from the bed he’d sat down on, approaching the mirror and wiping its grime off with his sleeve.

 

Jagged, swollen lines of red tore across his neck. He stared at them, stunned, scared. Stunned that he hadn’t noticed them until now.

And scared that he couldn’t remember how he got them in the first place.

**Author's Note:**

> Cross posted from my tumblr, trans-shuichisaihara. You can view my board [here.](https://78.media.tumblr.com/276c4a263eb40e7a13af05644705b41b/tumblr_pbhuo71wsy1vj6odao1_500.jpg)


End file.
